Even More College Football Relegation

In honor of SB Nation’s Relegation Week, I thought I would take a deep dive into the world of potential scenarios. Jason Kirk did an outstanding job, but if you are going to blow the whole system up, blow it up all the way. I tossed conference affiliations out the window and created a consistent structure throughout all of college football. 733 teams, five conferences and twelve levels.

Rules

Each conference within each level has 14 teams. Two divisions of seven teams each. The season consists of the following:

1 Non-counting pre-season game

3 Non-conference games with a maximum of one game from a team of a lower level

6 Games against division opponents

3 Games against teams from the opposite division

1 Conference Championship Game, with home site determined by inter-conference record, team from the best division hosts, even if their record is worse

Playoff: An eight team playoff (at the Rose Bowl homesites, of course) featuring the five Conference Champs and three at-large selections with at most one from each league, with no priority seeding for Conference Champs.

Relegation: Teams finishing seventh in their division play a Thursday night game prior to the Conference Championship with the loser relegated and the winner is safe for another week. If an at-large team is selected for the playoffs from the same conference in one division lower, the worst sixth place team plays the winner from the seventh place game on Thursday before the playoffs. Winner is firmly safe for another year and the loser spends the next season in the lower division.

The five surviving conferences are the same as Jason’s, the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC. Each conference has a footprint that is consistent across all of the levels.

SEC
Current conference footprint minus Louisiana and Arkansas. Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina. For the lower levels, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia are included.

Relegation

Big Ten: Ohio enters as Level 2 champs, Minnesota and Indiana play for the right to stay in level 1.SEC: UCF and Southern Miss both earn Level 2 playoff berths so Georgia Tech and Louisville play for the spot out, and the winner plays Auburn for the second relegation position.Big 12: Houston is in from Level 2 along with Tulsa while Iowa St and Texas Tech battle for the first spot and the winner will take on Iowa for the second.Pac-12: Oregon St and Colorado are first on the block, with the winner facing Washington St for the right to stay in Level 1 while Nevada and Air Force are in the Level 2 playoffs.ACC: Temple is in for the next season while Maryland and Duke play for the right to stay in the top level of the ACC.

The relegation system is a bit messy but I wanted to give each team a chance to play their way out of it, ensuring maximum drama. Even the worst team can survive a relegation by winning one or two relegation games. All playoff teams from the lower levels get promoted and only the three worst teams from a League at each level can be demoted, but everyone one of them has an opportunity to survive on the end.

The Pros and Cons

Obviously this is never happening, but the drama of weeknight relegation games leading into conference championship and playoff games would be great. There is a consistent footprint, a consistent league structure, and consistent rules all through the depths of college football. New programs adding football can earn their way up the ladder if they want to invest like the big boys. Traditionally terrible football schools like Duke have to earn their place at the big boys table instead of getting to coast on other programs, all while staying under their conference umbrella. I could see level-specific scholarship levels disappearing. If you want to compete like the big schools go ahead and offer 85 and see how far you can get. If you want to be cheap and control costs you can forgo scholarships and see how well you fare. Ultimately each team is playing against teams that are historically similar producers. Travel, especially at the lower levels, shouldn’t be a significant issue and for some teams might be less than today. Because of the footprint restrictions and the division structure, travel should be manageable.

Rivalries could certainly be impacted but non-conference scheduling would allow series to continue, even if teams were in opposing levels. Divisions would likely be based on geography at the lower levels and competitive balance at the top. If one team really diverged from its historic level it would be difficult to maintain rivalries but the option is always there for at least the main rival.

[After the jump: conference breakdowns in the new world.]

The Big Board

Here are the teams that comprise each Conference and each level. For now current levels are protected, so the top teams from FCS are still behind the bottom teams from FBS and so on for each level. D3 and NAIA are considered equivalent and I used these ratings to rank everything below FBS. BCS conference schools were protected wherever possible. There obviously isn’t perfect balance but I think it’s pretty close considering the complexity quantity of teams and need to balance both the top and the bottom. The Pac-12 doesn’t have enough teams to fill out their entire 12 divisions. Based on historical trends, Pac-12 Level 4 would compete with the other Level 6s, Level 5 with the 7s, and level 6 with the 10s. The other four Conferences all have between 158 and 173 teams while maintaining a consistent footprint.

I'm hardly a "futbol" fan but as a casual observer, the crazyness associated with this years championships (Chelsea knocking Tottenham out etc.), I say lets go for it! Again, a bloggers proposal makes much more sense than the aholes that run this show.

I always see this idea discussed as "relegation," but don't forget there are two sides to this coin. I saw the end of the West Ham United* vs. Blackpool (?) game this weekend and the West Ham fans were going nuts because they were going to be promoted back to the Premier league.

* Shouldn't they just be called, "Ham United," because if they are truly United, there would be no need to make the East/West distinction.

This is interesting, but I'mconfused about what you mean when you say "division" a few times (whether you mean conference division or division as it is used by the ncaa now: div I, II, III; which I believe you referred to as "level" at the beginning. )

" If an at-large team is selected for the playoffs from the same conference in one division lower, the worst sixth place team plays the winner from the seventh place game on Thursday..."

That means same conference but one level lower? And this would mean the losers from those 2 games are being replaced by the level 2 conference champ and its at-large friend?

I don't quite understand how you placed the teams. What I mean is that Wabash and DePauw are in different levels inside the Big Ten. They are both Div III teams. Only reason I know this is because three of my friends in high school went there, and the Monon Bell game is a REALLY big deal to them.

Can we take the top two finishers in each of the five conferences and create a 'Champions' League' of sorts? I know the time/scheduling concerns would preclude this from happening, but as this is an exercise in off-season hopeful imagination, let's add that to the list.

As if ESPN and the SEC don't ride the B1G as being a weak conference already. Please no... Four mid-majors for the B1G, two for the SEC, zero for the Big12, one for the Pac12, and zero for the ACC.

At least leave the state of Iowa in the B1G region to maintain some continuity and even out the seriously lacking 12th division (albeit, not as laughingly deficient as the Pac12 only fielding six divisions).

This is good on a whole bunch of levels. If done across every sport, it might allow a small school like Calvin (btw, I did not see them on your list...no football program but they were D-III National Champs in basketball in the 90's) to compete in sports they are good at and focus there resources to be world class in niche sports like say hockey or rowing or swimming or fencing or track or distance running or volleyball or soccer or whatever. It would allow you to pitch your school to top athletes and garner the exposure of competing against larger institutions.

Doesn't seem like relegation/promotion is appropriate for college. Players are on the field for a maximum of 4, but more likely about 2, years. A senior dominated team could easily perform well and get promoted, only to be a laughing stock the following year when all the seniors are gone and they are playing stiffer competition.

Not to mention the impact of one star player. Think about Dan LeFevour at CMU. He would have gotten CMU up to Level 1. After he left, they were 3-9 (in 2010) against MAC competition - who knows what would have happened against the more traditional B1G.

Can't promote a team when they are forbidden from returning their star players.

I think that would make coaches focus more on recruiting players they know would stick around. It would prevent a Kentucky-esque basketball situtaion where Calipari recruit five kids that win him the title and they all leave...

Coaches would have to encourage the children to stay in school longer, thus more houses of learn-ed doctors, as Dale Dobeck would say.

In 2008, Indiana gets releated. In 2009, without Indiana for it's sole win and to fall behind Michigan in the standings, Michigan gets relegated. In 2010, Denard happens, Michigan wins all of their games and gets elevated to level 1 again. If RR didn't get fired after year 2, he'd still be on after year 3.

I don't think Rodriguez could possibly make it through Year 2 and relegation. That could have been the first time in history that we would have been demoted out of the top-tier level and I don't think any coach would have survived that - think of the pain that came with snapping the bowl streak multiplied by 25.

Finally, tailgating at The Grove at Ole Miss will become more accessible for those of us from the states that fought on the "other side" in the "War of Northern Aggression." Maybe Mississippi State will ask that the season-ending "rivalry game" will be renamed the "Scrambled Egg Bowl."

So much for the Mannings' tailgating tent and that cheer in The Grove:

I love the effort here by the mathlete, just incredible. To slot all these schools into divisions, this must have taken a day or two to do all this work.

In terms of the actual proposal, well, we know it will never happen. A relegation and promotion system implicitly assumes that every team has winning as a #1 prority. With college sports, you have all sorts of competing priorities, especially for teams outside of DI BCS.